Implantable medical devices (IMDs) monitor and treat physiological conditions within the body. These devices, including pacemakers, implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICDs), drug delivery systems, and neurostimulators, can help manage a broad range of ailments, such as cardiac arrhythmia, diabetes, and Parkinson's disease. Medical care providers can monitor the IMD and assess patient current and historical physiological state to predict impending events or conditions. Providers can also initiate and/or modify treatment plans from time to time and/or evaluate patient compliance with nutrition, exercise and general care regiments based on data recorded in the IMD. Additionally, laboratory personnel can perform IMD diagnostics to improve function efficiencies and detection of low remaining battery life.
The latest IMDs support delivery of telemetry for remote monitoring and control. The information communicated between an IMD and a remote device using telemetry is often highly sensitive and personal. However, measures for ensuring that information is communicated from the IMD in trusted scenarios are limited. Balancing security and privacy with safety and efficacy will become increasingly important as IMD technologies evolve.
Today, the proximity necessary to use the inductive telemetry protocol provides a certain amount of security and allows active IMDs to pass data and accept data from a device external to the body of the patient. Inductive telemetry uses the mutual inductance established between two closely-placed coils. This type of telemetry is referred to as inductive telemetry or near-field telemetry because the coils must typically be closely situated for obtaining inductively coupled communication. However, the ability to use inductive telemetry protocol, and especially proprietary inductive telemetry protocols, is limited to devices fitted to perform inductive technology. As such, a majority of existing personal consumer electronic devices are unable to be utilized for IMD telemetry. Accordingly, there is a business desire to use commercially available telemetry protocols in order to more easily facilitate widespread provisioning of telemetry solutions while maintaining the security safeguards associated with inductive telemetry protocols.